#16 "Star Trek: The Next Generation" - Behind The Scenes - Part 1

Suzanne starts the episode with a “local’s view” of Oprah Winfrey’s recent “yard sale” at The Santa Barbara Polo Club just down the road from the podcast recording studio.    After Bob dodges her questions about “what’s happening with your face?”, he describes returning to the studio where he was once a “gopher”, as a writer-producer of Paramount Television’s huge syndicated hit Star Trek: The Next Generation.   With never-before revealed details of his Rolls-Royce ride and 3-martini lunch with Gene Roddenberry, Bob recalls the rapid turnover of writers, producers, and  executives on ST:TNG, which became a hugely successful syndicated series hit in spite of the downward spiral of internal staff and studio politics.   Bob pulls no punches in describing his meetings with members of the show’s cast, to the point where Suzanne says “What a mess!” Caught in the middle of what he describes as “Shakespearean complexity” on the show, Bob reveals the secret of surviving on the staff of any hit television series.   He then describes his process for writing credible science fiction in pursuit of the Star Trek vision, and provides  the behind-the-scenes motivation for his script The Icarus Factor...in which he actually tried to kill off the captain of The Enterprise!